Reservoir Avenue Elementary School Science Teacher Wins Amgen Award

Dawn Clifton, a parent at Reservoir Avenue Elementary School, shared that Reservoir teacher Joanne Kearns has won a 2011 Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence. The award provides Mrs. Kearns with $10,000 and an additional $10,000 for the school. Many congratulations to Mrs. Kearns for her accomplishments.

In her email, Dawn added:

I think we can all name a teacher in our children's schools who, like Mrs. Kearns, manages to make great strides for our kids despite all kinds of challenges. I would really like for us to spread the word about these types of accomplishments rather than the incredibly negative slant PPSD has been receiving in the press and community. Wouldn't it be great if every school in our district felt compelled to submit at least one teacher for these types of awards? Reservoir students thrive under the challenges that teachers like Mrs. Kearns present to them. Let's celebrate these accomplishments.

To which I can only say: right on! Thanks, Dawn, and thanks to Mrs. Kearns for a job exceptionally well done.

MLK Elementary participates in Lego Robotics Park Event

I'm delighted to feature a sunny side report from Kim Rohm, a parent of two students at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School (which is where my children also attend school). With her fifth grade daughter and other King students, Kim attended the Lego Robotics Park event that took place on Saturday, April 2 to support King's Lego Robotics Club, an afterschool program led by fifth grade teacher David Baxter. Here's her report:

It was a fantastic event organized by the Rhode Island School of the Future (celebrating its 20th anniversary). In the program for the day, RISF states that they are a “RI non-profit dedicated to helping schools improve their 'Lifelong' learning skills in their students and support teachers in this endeavor.  The RISF provides opportunities for students to act like real writers, real scientists, real mathematicians, real designers and to develop technological fluency through involvement in robotic design activities.” The event was titled Beautifully Organized Designed Systems.

We believe that MLK (which on one document was referred to as MLK Academy which we all thought was hilarious) was the only PPSD school. We held our own among the following local schools/teams: Barrington Middle School, Riverside Middle School, Sowams Elementary and Hampden Meadows, Hyper Green Oreos (the name of a team, not a school!), Eldredge Elementary, Martin Middle School, Barrington Christian Academy, YMCA at JDMS, Newport Community, Our Lady of Mercy, Mount Hope High, St. Mary’s Bayview, All Saints, Guest Family Homeschool, E.T. Wyman, Anna M. McCabe School, and the French American School.

Events included Chain Reaction Machine, Feeding Frenzy Pit, Animal Demonstrations, Interactive Robot Demonstrations and a Robotics Parade. The MLK Lego Team entered the parade and their “Bodies in Motion” float featured a robot that MLK Lego Team member/5th grader Roumel programmed to follow a black line on the floor of the gym. Roumel's robot pulled a float that had its own motor that made a platform of Lego people spin. The “people” were all doing a physical activity – soccer, running, walking, etc. It was pretty cool. Some of the floats, animals and other Lego displays clearly took months to put together. Super great day!

Report from Windmill Street Elementary School Board Hearing, March 30

Here's a brief report from the Providence School Board hearing on Windmill Street Elementary that took place at Windmill on March 30.

The Windmill school community used their advocacy skills tested by last year's PPSD proposal to close the school, which obviously ended in a decision to keep the school open. Lots of signs and poster, lots of families with kids and babies, 75+ students, teachers, parents making their cases to save their school. The hearing was heavy on emotion; lots of tears and desperation among speakers and audience members. It was crushingly sad to see so many kids, parents, and teachers so proud of and attached to their school say over and over and over and over that they wanted it to remain as an anchor of their community.

I don't know why Windmill is targeted for closure. Facility issues, it seems, rather than performance issues, as indicators of achievement have risen steadily over the past few years. Certainly not because other nearby schools can take up the slack. There are no other nearby elementary schools. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School and Veazie Street Elementary School are the nearest locations. Both are across major highways (King is across 95 and is a schlep to get to; Veazie Street is across 146 and not very nearby either) and fairly full themselves (I think that's the case for Veazie Street; it certainly is the case for King).

There was not enough meaningful commentary about the claim made by PPSD that many folks in the neighborhood don't use Windmill, one of the arguments for closing the school. Here in PDF form is the information that the district shared to back up that assertion. A few Windmill speakers described the experience of being dissuaded or even prevent by PPSD registration from enrolling their kids at Windmill, claims that aren't difficult to believe, so what the real story is about neighborhood demand for Windmill seats, I can't say. Right now, it doesn't seem that the neighborhood is hitting the levels of organization that's happening on the West Side via WSPEC. I wish I--or someone--had the capacity to spend time in the North End better understanding the situation. Clearly, this is a beloved school, an anchor of its community, and it feels wrong to remove the only option for a neighborhood school in that part of town.

Mayor Taveras meeting with WSPEC + Flynn School Board hearing tonight

Two quick notes:

Per the ProJo, his afternoon, the West Side Public Education Coalition met--or perhaps is still meeting--with Mayor Taveras to clarify the questions and issues its members have raised in public statements and on its web site about the impact proposed school closures and reorganizations will have on the West Side's communities. WPSEC has been awesome at sharing info--looking forward to a report from the meeting (which was closed to the public).

Very much not closed to the public is tonight's School Board hearing on the proposed closure of Flynn Elementary School, to take place at 6:00pm at the Davey Lopes Recreation Center at 227 Dudley Street. Again, if any Providence Schools and Beyond reader attends and is willing to write up notes and thoughts, I'd be thrilled to publish those here along with my quick summary of last week's Windmill Street Elementary hearing.

Writers-in-the-Schools presents Young Poets Read at AS220, April 9

On Saturday, April 9 from 3:00-5:00pm, come out to support young poets from Providence and Central Falls as they read their work at AS220, 115 Empire Street in Providence.

Writers-in-the-Schools matches poets with classrooms in Rhode Island's urban schools, providing writing instruction and poetry education/enlightenment/encouragement. On Saturday, poets from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School and Central Falls High School will share their work. Come out to support them and to show your commitment for poetry as an essential part of learning and expression.

I'll be there for sure; it happens that Elias, my fifth grader at King, is one of the performers. However, I'd be sharing this event with you even if he or his school weren't a part of it. We need to do all we can to support Writers-in-the-Schools work, and our schools' capacity to collaborate with artists, writers, poets, and others from our community who have so much to offer our students.

The sunnier side of the street

MLK Elementary's NECAP celebration, October 2010

I'm starting a feature on Providence Schools and Beyond spotlighting the triumphs of Providence Public Schools students and educators. The triumphs, victories, celebration can be huge or tiny. If I don't post something every day, it's only because I haven't spread the word well enough, because I know for sure there is something to celebrate every single day.

Amid obstacles, bad news, setbacks, and challenges we're facing this spring, excellent teaching and learning continues. Students achieve and thrive. Teachers experience professional breakthroughs and honors. We have so much to celebrate, and because by nature I tend to hang out on the sunny side of the street, I am eager to share good news. I'm not doing so to bury my head in the sand or suggest that you do the same, but given the limited space and time that media devotes to education and the frighteningly flashy train-wreck quality of recent Providence (and beyond) education news, we're not hearing enough about the events worth celebrating in the lives of students, teachers, classrooms, and schools.

So please help spread the word. If there's something happening in your school community that you think needs to be shared widely, tell all of the usual media sources of course, and if you have an extra few seconds, let me know too, and I'll share the news here. I'm @dazzlingbetty on Twitter. Find me there or email me at jill.davidson-at-gmail-dot-com.

Questions from the West, questions from the East, and the company we keep

Both the West Side Public Education Coalition (WSPEC) and the East Side Public Education Coalition (ESPEC) have posted thoughtful, necessary questions about the intertwined school closing/teacher firing/student reassignment crises: WSPEC questions here and ESPEC questions here.

Timelines to meet city budget and teacher retirement deadlines have created a sense of urgency that seems to be in conflict with the equally urgent need for transparency, not to mention an appropriate process, described as a minimum 12-month process. in this comprehensive guide to school closures due to urgent fiscal pressures put out by the Broad Foundation.

To make sense of and meaningfully participate in the current situation and in order to (re)establish a baseline of trust so that we can move forward with faith in the system and our leaders, we (students, family members, educators, and everyone else) need clearer, better answers from the Mayor, other elected officials, and the school board.

And in order to put the proposed school closures into a national context, take a few minutes to read this excellent account from the Philadelphia Public School Notebook of the Ford Foundation's recent "Examining School Transformations and Closures from the Ground Up" event and related school closings/reorganizations in the works in Philly and Newark (thanks to Tom Hoffman for pointing out the Notebook story).

While the context in Providence doesn't overlap fully with what's happening in New York and Chicago, the effect of our current lightning round of school closures has the truly unfortunate potential to producing much of the same community alienation and distrust. And while those of us who know the situation in Providence can read the Notebook's account and say, "Well, that's not us," those outside our context could and likely will easily believe that our city is selling out its public schools in ways that the Chicago and New York activists are claiming (if you need proof of this, see the recent claims that the city's move to dismiss all PPSD teachers put us firmly in Wisconsin's company).

Let me be clear: I don't think that's what's happening. There's a completely valid case to be made for "rightsizing" a district by dealing with excess school building capacity. There's a real need to deal with school buildings that have outlived their usefulness as places that provide the conditions for excellent teaching and learning. And there's a completely evident urgency that Providence must deal with its finances responsibly. No arguments there. But because the rushed process cannot include meaningful community/stakeholder participation, we have to face the reality that we're damaging our city's public schools, even though that damage may be inadvertent. Therefore, the need to get clear answers to pressing questions is critically important right now so that we can put everyone in all neighborhoods to work containing the damage and moving forward to ensure the best shot at ensuring consistently good schools for all kids in every part of Providence.